The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Nelson Mandela

  • Burial site: Mandela family members go to court

    Burial site: Mandela family members go to court

    As Nelson Mandela remained in critical condition in hospital yesterday, a family feud over where the 94-year-old former president should be buried went to court, according to South Africa’s national broadcaster.

    Mandela’s oldest daughter, Makaziwe, and 15 other family members have pressed a court application to get Mandela’s grandson to return the bodies of three of Mandela’s children to their original graves in the eastern rural village of Qunu, according to the SABC.

    The grandson, Mandla Mandela, acknowledges having reburied the three bodies 20 kilometres away in the Mvezo village, where he plans to create a Mandela shrine, hotel and soccer stadium, according to the South African Press Association.

    Grandson Mandla Mandela has until today to respond to the court filing, reports said.

    The anti-apartheid leader built his retirement home in Qunu and was living there until his repeated hospitalizations which started at the end of last year. Nelson Mandela attended the burial of his son at the family plot in Qunu in 2005, and it was widely expected that the leader himself will be buried there.

    But his grandson exhumed the bodies of Mandela’s three children and moved them to nearby Mvezo, which is the former president’s birthplace and where the grandson holds authority as chief.

    Eldest daughter Makaziwe and other Mandela family members want the family bodies returned to their original graves in Qunu, according to the reports.

    The family court struggle came as Mandela’s ex-wife said that he had improved in recent days, but remained critical.

    Winnie Madikizela-Mandela gave the update yesterday while speaking to journalists outside Mandela’s former home in Soweto.

    “I’m not a doctor but I can say that from what he was a few days ago there is great improvement,” said Madikizela-Mandela, who is a member of South Africa’s Parliament.

    Madikizela-Mandela pleaded with the media to “understand the sensitivities and the feeling of the family.”

    His daughter Makaziwe Mandela was among the family members who arrived at the Pretoria hospital yesterday. The ministers of health and defence also visited, the South African Press Association reported.

    Outside the Pretoria hospital yesterday, a man flying a drone-like object with a camera attached was led away by several policemen, adding to an already heightened atmosphere where well-wishers continue to gather to pray for Mandela.

  • Tense South Africa awaits Mandela news

    Tense South Africa awaits Mandela news

    South Africans are heading to work in a sombre mood as they await news on former President Nelson Mandela, BBC reports.

    The South African presidency announced on Sunday evening that Mr. Mandela had become critical, even though doctors were “doing everything possible.”

    A senior official said South Africans should not hold out “false hopes.”

    South Africa’s first black president, 94, was taken to hospital in Pretoria earlier this month for the third time this year, with a lung infection.

    President Jacob Zuma said on Sunday that he had visited Mr. Mandela and spoken to his wife and medical teams.

    Mr. Zuma said he had been told by doctors that the former president’s condition had worsened over the past 24 hours.

    “The doctors are doing everything possible to get his condition to improve and are ensuring that Madiba is well-looked after and is comfortable. He is in good hands,” said President Zuma, using Mr. Mandela’s clan name by which he is widely known in South Africa.

    Mac Maharaj, Mr. Zuma’s spokesman, told the BBC’s Newshour that the doctors’ use of the word “critical” was “sufficient explanation that should raise concern amongst us.”

    “Therefore we want to assure the public that the doctors are working away to try and get his condition to improve,” he said.

    Mr. Maharaj added that this was a stressful time for the Mandela family, and appealed for their privacy.

    “I think there is need to be sombre about the news. There is a need not to hold out false hopes but at the same time let’s keep him in our thoughts and let’s will him more strength,” he said.

     

     

  • Mandela’s quotes

    Mandela’s quotes

    The world has continued to pray for the speedy recovery of Nelson Mandela, who is being treated for a recurrent lung infection in a Pretoria hospital.  The South Africa government has described the health condition of the country first black leader as “serious but stable”.

    The Nation Online serves you some of Madiba’s quotes as the anti-apartheid fighter ‘fights for his life’. You can make a pick of your favourite quote(s) while you are also free to add your favourite Mandela’s quote(s).

    • “I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended.”
    • “For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”
    • “If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.”
    • “Man’s goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished.”
    • “I was made, by the law, a criminal, not because of what I had done, but because of what I stood for, because of what I thought, because of my conscience.”
    • “The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
    • “When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.”
    • “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
    • “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
    • “I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.”
    • “A good head and good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate tongue or pen, then you have something very special.”
    • “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”
    • “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.”
    • “I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.”
    • “There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.”
    • “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”
    • “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”
    • “Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.”
    • “As I have said, the first thing is to be honest with yourself. You can never have an impact on society if you have not changed yourself… Great peacemakers are all people of integrity, of honesty, but humility.”
    • “As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.”
    • “It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.”
    • “A leader. . .is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.”
    • “We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?”
  • Mandela returns to hospital

    Mandela returns to hospital

    Nelson Mandela has been admitted to hospital with a lung infection, the office of South African President Jacob Zuma says.

    In a statement on its website, it said the former president, who is 94, had been ill for several days.

    His condition deteriorated on Saturday morning and he was transferred to a hospital in Pretoria. He is said to be in a “serious but stable condition.”

    Mr. Mandela is widely regarded as father of the nation after fighting apartheid.

    BBC reports that he has recently suffered a series of health problems and this is his fifth visit to hospital in two years.

    In April he was released from hospital after a 10-day stay caused by pneumonia.

    His illness was described on Saturday as a recurrence of a lung infection, which has troubled him repeatedly.

    Mr. Mandela, South Africa’s first black president, was taken to hospital, from his home in a suburb of Johannesburg, at about 01:30 local time.

    Mac Maharaj, South Africa’s presidential spokesman, told the BBC he was receiving expert medical care.

    Doctors were doing everything possible to make him comfortable and better, he added.

     

  • Familial storm

    Familial storm

    •Mandela’s children’s battle over the potentate’s estate while he still lives reminds us of ourselves

    Sadly, one of the world’s most revered figures, South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, who turns 95 next month, has found himself in circumstances that echo the immortal wisdom of Sophocles, the famous Greek tragedian, who wrote in Oedipus Rex, “Call no man happy until he carries his happiness down to the grave in peace.” In his twilight, physically frail and mentally weak, he is, perhaps undeservedly, faced with the embarrassment of filial torment. The former anti-apartheid politician, who served as the first black President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and a recipient of the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize, has had his peace murdered by the actions of otherwise intimate family members.

    Two of his surviving daughters, Makaziwe, founder of the House of Mandela wine label, and Zenani, the South African ambassador to Argentina, reportedly filed court papers on April 9, alleging that George Bizos, housing minister Tokyo Sexwale and Mandela’s ex-lawyer, Bally Chuene, were never appointed as shareholders or directors of Harmonieux Investment Holdings and Magnifique Investment Holdings. The three have ignored a request for them to leave the companies. The two companies, linked to Mandela, are worth about $1.7m (£1.1m).

    Interestingly, the women reportedly filed the legal papers two days after their father was discharged from hospital, where he was being treated for pneumonia. The two companies were set up to channel proceeds from the sale of Mandela’s handprints for the benefit of himself and his offspring. The prized handprint, said to have been accidentally created while working on a sketch inspired by his imprisonment on Robben Island for his anti-apartheid posture, features an image resembling the African continent.

    However, in defence, Bizos, 84, a renowned human rights lawyer, one of Mandela’s oldest friends who has known him for 65 years, and defended him in the celebrated Rivonia Trial of 1963 against a possible death penalty was quoted as saying, , “There is no basis to the allegations. We are not hijackers. We don’t hijack things. The public should ask themselves why five years later these allegations are being laid. We are confident we were regularly appointed at the wish of Mr Mandela five years ago.” It is worthy of note that Sexwale, 60, was a fellow prisoner with Mandela on Robben Island.

    This unflattering development has betrayed the existence of lamentable cracks within the Mandela family. It is instructive that Mandela’s other daughter, Zindzi, is not involved in the court action. Makaziwe and Zenani have been criticised for alleged greed and insensitivity, charges that apparently have the ring of truth. In the first place, it is confusing that it took five years for the two sisters to legally challenge the alleged “hijackers.”

    Also, it is ironically curious that the sisters seem to be battling for what is already theirs by arrangement. This is because Mandela reportedly set up the fund as a safety net for his offspring, whom he, nevertheless, expected to pursue independent lives in spite of their father’s financial legacy. In addition, their action does their father a disservice, given his supremely positive iconic image and global stature. It would appear that their sense of entitlement based on their filial relationship to Mandela has been carried too far; and they have demonstrated a love for material treasures over familial affection. This is a truly disappointing episode.

    Perhaps even more worrisome is the scenario of internecine feud among family members after the patriarch’s exit. Here, at home, with the legal fisticufs of the Ibrus and Ojukwus, this sort of rumbles are dark patches of the human.

    It is relevant to reflect on the upbringing of Mandela’s children, against the background of his political activism and 27-year imprisonment for opposition to white minority rule in his country. Evidently, he was not around in their formative years. Mandela has married three times and fathered six children, three of whom have died. Makaziwe was born by his first wife, Evelyn Mase; Zenani and Zindzi, by his second wife, Winnie. His marriage to Evelyn lasted from 1944 to 1958, and Winnie from 1958 to 1996.He is now with Graça Machel whom he married in 1998. He reportedly has 17 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren. This is the family that is threatened by an ominous storm.

     

  • Mandela is in good shape- Zuma

    Mandela is in good shape- Zuma

    South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC) leadership has said the party is satisfied with health condition of  former President Nelson Mandela, as they visited him at home.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the party’s top six led by President Jacob Zuma visited Mandela at his Houghton home in Johannesburg on Monday.

    Zuma told newsmen after the visit that Mandela is in good health.  He said Mandela’s medical team was on hand to brief the party leadership.

    “Madiba is looking well. He is in good shape. We had some conversation with him, shook hands with him and he  smiled and exchanged banters. He’s really up and about. “He’s stabilised. We’re very happy he is fine,” Zuma said.

    A statement by the ANC spokesperson, Jackson Mthembu said the global struggle icon is receiving the best medical care at home.

    “After receiving a briefing from the medical team, the national officials are satisfied that Mandela is in good health and is receiving the very best medical care.

    “President Mandela is keenly aware of the goodwill that has been pouring in from various people across the globe which is befitting of his status as our icon,’’ Mthembu said

    NAN reports that the visit was the first by the recently elected top leadership of ANC to Mandela after their election in Dec. 2012.

    Mandela was discharged from hospital earlier April after spending nine days receiving treatment for recurring lung problems.

    The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has had a reoccurrence of lung ailments due to old age.

    Early in March, he was admitted to a Pretoria hospital for a scheduled check-up. He was discharged the following day.

    In Dec. 2012, Mandela underwent an operation to remove gallstones and was treated for recurring lung infection.

    He was discharged after 18-days in hospital; He was placed under home-based health care at his Houghton home after he was discharged from the hospital.

    In January, the presidency said Mandela had made a full recovery from surgery and was showing continued improvement However, in February last year he was re-admitted to hospital for a stomach ailment.

    The presidency said Mandela underwent a diagnostic procedure to investigate the cause of a long-standing abdominal complaint.

    Mandela’s last major public appearance was in July 2010, at the final of the FIFA World Cup in Johannesburg.

    Since then he has spent his time between Johannesburg and his ancestral village of Qunu in the Eastern Cape.(NAN)

  • Achebe: Adieu, agent of change

    Achebe: Adieu, agent of change

    The news of the death of the foremost African folklorist, Prof. Chinua Achebe as shattering as it marks the nunc dimitis of pioneer African writing. This indeed shows what stealth death can do even to those whose lives and works have become institutions. The death of Achebe underscores the immortality of all living creatures even as their good works will live on.

    Described by President Nelson Mandela as the “writer in whose company the prison walls fell down”,Achebe  and writing sought   to and did liberate souls and people who were captives man’s inhumanity to fellow men Achebe, the acclaimed asiwaju of Nigerian writing began writing at a time African literature was not in contention and had helped shape the African personality.

    He told his story, the society’s story and parodied the hitherto African and the evolving pre – and post – independent Africa, aside from predicting, with great precision, the destination of the emergent African states who have toed the wrong political lines.

    His book, A Man Of The People, was very prophetic and depicted the early rut in the system which culminated in Nigeria’s first Military coup.

    Just as his all – time best seller, Things Fall Apart exposed the primordial Igbo society, his essay, “The Trouble With Nigeria”, has remained the political reference book of any politician who trains his eyes on effecting social change. His apt diagnosis of the Nigerian social malaise and very succinct prescription for good governance sounds like a text of the lips off Che Guevera. He was a quiet revolutionary.

    Never losing hope in the ability of his Country Nigeria to rise and shine, he had beamed the klieg lights on all those things that had bedeviled social change and growth, and cautioned against resurgence. These he laid bare in his recent work, “There Was A Country”.

    This detailed narrative of the Biafara debacle should be patriotically read with a view to gleaning all the lessons Achebe wanted Nigerians to learn in order to coexist as a people, more so as those threats at national stability are everywhere.

    By his death, we have lost a gem, an archive of historical developments and an agent of change. Adieu.

    The Hon Barr. Nwabueze Ugwu

    Ikpemalueziokwu of greater Awgu land.

     

  • Nelson Mandela on my mind!

    Nelson Mandela on my mind!

    ‘The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering.’
    ———Bruce Lee

    At age 94, some people might be wondering why Nelson Mandela’s state of health is bothering my mind. But the truth is that majority of people from across the world feel so concerned too about the hospitalisation of this South-Africa’s political legend. As far back as January 2011, he was admitted to a Johannesburg hospital for specialised tests aimed at finding cure for his respiratory infections and old age induced prostate cancer.

    In February 2012, he was further hospitalised for what was described as a long-standing abdominal complaint. Now, Mandela is back in the hospital and we can not but continue to pray fervently for his fast recuperation. Some wonder: Why is the entire world so apprehensive for the life of a 94 years old man? At the risk of sounding immodest, Mandela is one of, if not, the most revered living or dead statesmen, that mankind ever produced.

    All black men; all black women; all coloured people and those with humanity flowing in their veins from whichever continent of the world would voluntarily attest to the greatness of Mandela. Perhaps before Mandela, the contemporary developed world axis has given up hope on the leadership capacity of black men. Mandela was an activist against apartheid rule in his home country of South-Africa. He fought and was ready to die fighting for what he believed in.

    Mandela could have compromised his brethrens’ freedom by negotiating his comfort with the pro-apartheid mongers. Of course, as far back as 1952 (60 years ago), he opened the first black legal firm in Johannesburg with his soul mate and partner in activism, Oliver Tambo. To be armed with a knowledge of law at that period was a passport to comfortable existence but he shunned this, preferring to fight for the total emancipation of his people from the shackles of apartheid subjugation, even when it meant doing that from the confines of the prison when he was undeservedly sentenced, alongside seven others, to life imprisonment on June 12, 1964. The white South-Africans in power tried all tricks to lure him out of his move against them but he stoutly refused. It was then that he reportedly made that famous statement: ‘Only free men can negotiate. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts.”

    Mandela was determined to die so that his people can be free. He established this fact in one of his appearances during the Rivonia Trial in October 1963. Mandela joined the other accused – Govan Mbeki, Walter Sisulu, Raymond Mhlaba, Elias Motsoaledi, Ahmed Kathrada, Denis Goldberg and Wilton Mkwayi – being tried for sabotage and conspiracy to overthrow the government when he stated: “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities…It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

    But Mandela did not die in prison for he still lives to savour the soothing air of freedom since when the apartheid rule crumbled in 1990. That year, then President FW de Klerk lifted the ban on the African National Congress (ANC), after intense global pressure; thence, Mandela was released from prison in February 11, 1990 before he later emerged the first black South African president of a new multi-racial democracy, where all races voted in 1994.

    Nelson Rolihlahla Dalibhunga Mandela was born in Transkei, South Africa on July 18, 1918. His mother was Nonqaphi Nosekeni while his father was Chief Henry Mandela from the Tembu Tribe and a chief counsellor to the Thembu royal family. Mandela lost his dad at age nine but Chief Jongintaba Dalindyebo, then acting regent of his tribe’s royal throne took custody of him. Probably due to the bias of the British educational system in South Africa, his primary school teacher gave him Nelson as his new first name. He was educated at University College of Fort Hare and the University of Witwatersrand. He joined the African National Congress that was established in 1912 in 1944 and was deeply involved in resistance moves against the ruling National Party’s apartheid policies. In 1956, Mr Mandela was charged with high treason along with 156 other anti-apartheid activists. But the charges against him were dropped after a four-year trial. He led resistance against then Pass Laws, which restricted where black people could be allowed to live and work. The ANC was outlawed in 1960 and Mr Mandela went underground. Tension with the apartheid regime soared in 1960 when 69 black people were shot dead by police in the Sharpeville massacre.

    The ANC was banned in 1960 after which Mandela promoted the idea of military wing for the party that came to fruition in June 1961. This led to the formation of Umkhonto we Sizwe. Mandela was re-arrested in 1962 and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment with hard labour. In 1963, some leaders of the ANC and the Umkhonto we Sizwe were arrested and Mandela was brought from prison to stand trial with them for plotting to overthrow the government by violence. His Life sentence in 1964 marked the end of peaceful resistance to apartheid policy. From 1964 to 1982, he was incarcerated at Robben Island Prison, off Cape Town; thereafter, he was at Pollsmoor Prison from 1982 to when he was released. From 1968 to 1969 alone, Mandela lost his mother and eldest son to a car crash but the cruel regime of that time did not allow him to attend their funerals.

    While in prison, his profile rose as he became the most significant black leader and symbol of resistance against apartheid rule in South Africa. He left prison to serve as an elected president of South Africa from 1994-99 when he voluntarily stepped down for his long term buddy, Thabo Mbeki, to take over from him as president of South Africa. Another good old friend of his is Walter Sisulu. At the age of 85 in 2004, he also retired voluntarily from public life when others like him or relatively close to that age are still running around trying to belatedly burnish the integrity they destroyed while in power.

    Even at 94, Mandela is still on my mind as one rues over the dearth of good leadership in Africa. The Mo Ibrahim Leadership Foundation unbelievably could not found any African leader worthy of its award this year. What a shame! Yet, the continent could take solace in the fact that it still has a Mandela that represents everything good and moral. Yours sincerely wants him to still live more years, so as to inspire white and coloured leaderships across the continents of the world.

    The immortality of Mandela, whether alive or dead, is guaranteed. The goal in life is not to live forever but to create something that will outlive us. This being so, Mandela’s place in history is pre-eminently deserved and reserved. With the reverence being shown him all over the world, not only now but since he left prison, he has taught us all, through his selfless service to mankind that what we do for ourselves might die with us, but what we do for others and the world remains and is immortal. In global recognition of his good deeds/legacy to humanity, his birthday, July 18, has been declared Mandela Day.

    No doubt, Mandela, unlike other leaders in Africa, is living a life that is worth remembering. That is the difference between Mandela, a selfless activist and other pretentious African rulers masquerading as leaders and champions of the people’s causes. Here is wishing the Madiba of our epoch fast recovery and more years of peaceful existence